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Robert & RPh,

Thanks for your comments and insights. I clearly need to start spending more time on the LOB site. I've been incorporating LoDO techniques and have seen marked improvement in my finished beers. Somehow I'd totally missed yeast oxygen scavenging, but now I'm really excited about giving it a try.

Santa's not gonna be happy when she hears that her 'elf' needs a new D.O. meter!

Brooo Brother
 
Robert & RPh,

Thanks for your comments and insights. I clearly need to start spending more time on the LOB site. I've been incorporating LoDO techniques and have seen marked improvement in my finished beers. Somehow I'd totally missed yeast oxygen scavenging, but now I'm really excited about giving it a try.

Santa's not gonna be happy when she hears that her 'elf' needs a new D.O. meter!

Brooo Brother
I would focus on upgrading your brewery for best practices first, then worry about buying a D.O. meter. Me personally, I kept putting off buying one, now I'm glad I did since I'm completely overhauling my setup to include brucontrol. I'll incorporate automated O2 monitoring and I don't have an expensive piece of equipment sitting in my basement collecting dust.
 
Do German/Belgian/British breweries do it?

It kind of begs the question, right? If the breweries who make your favorite beer don't do it, why would I do it?
One thing to keep in mind is that on larger commercial scales, vulnerability to HSO is much less than it is on the homebrew scale anyway. Strike liquor from the HLT may be at least partially deoxygenated to start with (moreso than ours) and because of the greatly reduced surface area to volume ratio on a large system, potential for oxygen ingress is much less. So even conventional commercial outfits are low-er oxygen by a considerable degree than conventional homebrew systems. So special measures are more critical for homebrewers. Homebrewers wishing to emulate even conventional US, British, or Continental brewing are probably well advised to incorporate at least some low oxygen measures. Full implementation is needed to emulate the most modern, industrial macro plants in Germany, but there are many German breweries not operating on this level. That said, homebrew is so vulnerable, any measures taken will improve any of our efforts.
 
I would focus on upgrading your brewery for best practices first, then worry about buying a D.O. meter. Me personally, I kept putting off buying one, now I'm glad I did since I'm completely overhauling my setup to include brucontrol. I'll incorporate automated O2 monitoring and I don't have an expensive piece of equipment sitting in my basement collecting dust.

Yeah, the D.O. meter comment was tongue-in-cheek. SWMBO (aka, "Santa") holds an over-ride veto on future equipment purchases for the foreseeable future.

I'm gradually but steadily moving in fully incorporating LoDO. So far I've pre-boiled strike water and dosed with Meta prior to mash-in, underlet mash water, utilized continuous recirculation with a mash cap, went to no sparge, achieve only a simmering boil, reduce boil time to a minimum, chill with a stainless IC vs. copper, transfer to sealed/purged fermenter on the hot side.

On the cold side I initially chill the fresh wort for a few hours to precipitate some trub and hot/cold break out of the conical. Then I inject the starter yeast followed by oxygenation (pitch BEFORE O2). After high krausen is reached I do a second trub dump. At ~5 pts. before FG I cap the fermentation and spund to 15 psig. When gravity is stable for 3-5 days I crash it for about 48 hours, followed by a pressure transfer to a serving keg for a few weeks to condition and clear fully.

I'm not sure how I overlooked yeast oxygen scavenging of strike water but I'm anxious to give it a try. I've become a strong advocate of LoDO as much as practical since I can really see a significant improvement and extended shelf life in my beers. Presently on tap are an American Wheat and a high IBU IPA. The IPA was brewed late July and the wheat early June. The wheat still tastes fresh, and only recently have the hops started to fade noticeably in the IPA.

Fortunately both kegs are close to kicking and will be replaced just in time for the holidays with another hoppy IPA and a high octane Winter Warmer that have been chillin' in the beer fridge. Can't wait for the next decent brew day in the new year to try out YOS water treatment.

Brooo Brother
 
Good stuff.
You may want to try spunding in the keg instead of the fermenter.

I started out spunding in kegs. I'd ferment down to ~5 psi in my conical that would only pressurize to 2-3 psi safely, then do a transfer under low pressure to a keg to finish fermentation as well as carbonate. Now with a unitank I can save one transfer and finish a week earlier.

I still spund in a keg if I'm doing two beers simultaneously. But I really like being able to avoid the extra racking, as well as crash and carb in the same vessel. But both ways work quite well.

Brooo Brother
 
Yep, that's the point, no transfer after fermentation. So the oxygen inevitably picked up in transfer, no matter how tight, is consumed by yeast. Frees up fermenter faster, makes better beer, simpler. What's not to like?
 
Is there a concern about not leaving it on the yeast long enough to clean up diacetyl or other flavor compounds? Or is it the thought that pitching the correct amount of healthy and vital yeast does a lot to limit these? Or there is enough yeast during the transfer to metabolize these compounds in the keg?

I have always heard it’s best to keep beer on the yeast until after a diacetyl rest, then cold crash and transfer. I’ve always wondered if spunding in a fermenting keg results in less desirable flavor compounds as there’s a lot of yeast in the vessel under higher pressure, potentially releasing off flavors.
 
Is there a concern about not leaving it on the yeast long enough to clean up diacetyl or other flavor compounds? Or is it the thought that pitching the correct amount of healthy and vital yeast does a lot to limit these? Or there is enough yeast during the transfer to metabolize these compounds in the keg?

I have always heard it’s best to keep beer on the yeast until after a diacetyl rest, then cold crash and transfer. I’ve always wondered if spunding in a fermenting keg results in less desirable flavor compounds as there’s a lot of yeast in the vessel under higher pressure, potentially releasing off flavors.

That has been my concern as well. After spunding in the keg I'd transfer under pressure to a purged serving keg. The finished beer is remarkably clear after crashing and conditioning, with all the trub and yeast left behind in the spunding keg.

With a unitank I go directly to carb, crash and conditioning without an intermediate transfer to a spunding keg. I also save on CO2 from the conical to spunding keg and go grain to glass one week sooner with no loss of quality.

Since it usually takes me at least 4-6 weeks to go through a single keg I need to have a beer stay 'fresh' at least 3 months. Incorporating LoDO techniques has helped immensely, including hop flavors and aromas, in keeping things lively.

Brooo Brother
 
Brooo Brother, transferring your beer after fermentation is a guaranteed way to make sure it won't stay fresh 3 days, let alone 3 months. Spund in the serving keg and take as many months as you like to drink it, that's what will preserve all those fresh flavors you're concerned about. It will also drop crystal clear in there. You can either draw most of the sediment in the first couple of pints, or use a trimmed or floating dip tube and never draw any sediment. Try it once and you'll never go back.
 
Yep, that's the point, no transfer after fermentation. So the oxygen inevitably picked up in transfer, no matter how tight, is consumed by yeast. Frees up fermenter faster, makes better beer, simpler. What's not to like?

We can agree that no transfer is going to be 100% oxygen free, although when I prep my serving kegs I do an NaMeta full volume purge pushed by CO2 from the blowout tube of the fermenter at high krausen. Later when the beer is carbed, it literally pressure transfers itself from one oxygen scavenged vessel to another. With any luck at all I never have to use bottled CO2 from a welding supply.

I know it's not perfect but it's pretty darn good for an old guy not wearing a lab coat.

Brooo Brother
 
Brooo Brother, transferring your beer after fermentation is a guaranteed way to make sure it won't stay fresh 3 days, let alone 3 months. Spund in the serving keg and take as many months as you like to drink it, that's what will preserve all those fresh flavors you're concerned about. It will also drop crystal clear in there. You can either draw most of the sediment in the first couple of pints, or use a trimmed or floating dip tube and never draw any sediment. Try it once and you'll never go back.

'Clear' is a relative description. I don't filter to achieve brilliant clarity but rather crash to get 'very good' (again relative term), clarity. Since it's not Pastuerized or polished with a 0.4 micron sterilizing filter there are still a few brave soldier yeasts suspended in the keg. Even at serving temperature they continue affecting the chemistry, however slightly.

I'm not striving to make a beer that will survive the zombie apocalypse or age as gracefully as the remainder of the case of 1958 Chateau Y'Quem I have cellaring. Just long enough (and clear enough) to get me to the 'kick' and still be drinkable.

But the methodology I'm working to develop is showing promising results. Nevertheless it remains a work in progress, and I'm grateful for the help and suggestions you guys are offering up.

Brooo Brother
 
'Clear' is a relative description.

Spunded in serving keg. Relatively clear. :)
20191130_204706.jpg
 
Specifically, Weyermann Barke Pilsner with 5% CaraHell.

Sweet! Simple yet elegant. Helles and Koelsch are two of my favorite beers. I still believe that it is much more difficult to produce a quality German pilsner than an American IPA (especially a NEIPA). In all that golden goodness there's just no place for flaws to hide.

Beautiful pic and delicious looking beer.

Brooo Brother
 
For my next couple of brews, I'd like to experiment with the yeast scavenging method to de-oxygenate strike water, it seems so straightforward and elegant. I apologize if this is buried in the thread somewhere, but has anyone experienced any down sides to using this method?

Thanks.

- AC
 
Is there a good commercial product I could buy to compare with a non low-oxygen similar beer?
I prefer ales, stouts if possible.
Unfortunately no. :(
For my next couple of brews, I'd like to experiment with the yeast scavenging method to de-oxygenate strike water, it seems so straightforward and elegant. I apologize if this is buried in the thread somewhere, but has anyone experienced any down sides to using this method?
I haven't had any off flavors from YOS and can't imagine there would be any issues from it.
I'm not sure I follow this. Can you explain what needs to happen to transfer finished beer without oxidizing?
Spunding. Only transfer beer that is actively fermenting.

Only active yeast will rapidly consume oxygen.
 
Yes that is exactly what we are saying. You are oxidizing the beer doing that.

I'll have to plead ignorance on this one. If the beer was fermented start to finish in a previously purged, closed container after having been mashed and boiled using LoDO protocols on the hot side, and is then transferred under positive self-generated CO2 pressure into a purged serving vessel, where is the potential for anything other than trace amounts of oxygen ingress.

How is this different from spunding in a keg? I'm not saying oxidation can't happen. I just don't see the mechanism.

Brooo Brother
 
I'm not sure I follow this. Can you explain what needs to happen to transfer finished beer without oxidizing?

It simply can't be done, even at the uber pro macro level (where they are HYPER sensitive and critical to all things oxygen) transferring still beer picks up DO.
 
I'll have to plead ignorance on this one. If the beer was fermented start to finish in a previously purged, closed container after having been mashed and boiled using LoDO protocols on the hot side, and is then transferred under positive self-generated CO2 pressure into a purged serving vessel, where is the potential for anything other than trace amounts of oxygen ingress.

How is this different from spunding in a keg? I'm not saying oxidation can't happen. I just don't see the mechanism.

Brooo Brother


Purged how? Verified how? Have you taken into consideration the permeation of the transfer tubing and gaskets in the vessels? What’s a trace amount? How do you measure the amount you pick up?

Simply put its not possible on any level to transfer a finished beer without picking up DO.
 
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Purged how? Verified how? Have you taken into consideration the permeation of the transfer tubing and gaskets in the vessels?

Simply put its not possible on any level to transfer a finished beer without picking up DO.

First off, I really enjoyed the pod casts on LOB. Good information and experimentation in the search for better beer brewing. Keep 'em coming.

As for my protocols: Recieving keg filled with NaMeta aqueous solution (2 grams per 5 gal. water), liquid displaced by CO2 harvested from blow off line from active high krausen with residual drained from shortened gas-in post while inverted. Then spund-carbed beer transferred from fermenter at approximately 15 psig into recieving keg, presumedly with a small amount of viable yeast cells.

Might there be a small ingress of O2. Sure, I suppose, but just as likely there are random bacteria and other spoilage organisms hitching a ride or pre-existing in the fermenter or spunding keg as well. The issue isn't ultimate purity but the degree to which unwanted compounds can be reduced so as to not denigrate our finished product. Personally I worry more about PVCs leaching from plastic transfer lines than the minimal potential oxygen ingress from the brief time beer might be in a silicon transfer line.

Zero O2 is an unattainable goal. As long as oxygen is present in air there will be D.O. in water. There's also likely dueturium that results in "heavy water" as well but we don't obsess over eliminating the barely 1 in 6,000 random hydrogen isotopes and how they would react in brewing beer. If zero O2 were the only acceptable objective we never would have had pubs and rathskellers, because the beer had to get put into those kegs somehow and it wasn't as oxygen-free as the all-or-nothing absolutest methodologies we're talking about in LoDO.

I've seen improvement in the quality and stability of my beers since adopting LoDO techniques but I have to believe that the goal should be to achieve discernable results using logically obtainable practices.

I might try spiking my serving keg with a little krausening speise when I transfer from the unitank. The yeast oxygen scavenging of strike water also looks like a promising technique. Short of that I don't think I'll be abandoning the unitank to serving keg method without some pretty convincing evidence.

Brooo Brother
 
I'm not sure I would know the difference between low oxygen brewed beer and not.
Is there a good commercial product I could buy to compare with a non low-oxygen similar beer?
I prefer ales, stouts if possible.
Hit up Utepils, they're low oxygen and make some decent beer, especially their Helles.
 
First off, I really enjoyed the pod casts on LOB. Good information and experimentation in the search for better beer brewing. Keep 'em coming.

As for my protocols: Recieving keg filled with NaMeta aqueous solution (2 grams per 5 gal. water), liquid displaced by CO2 harvested from blow off line from active high krausen with residual drained from shortened gas-in post while inverted. Then spund-carbed beer transferred from fermenter at approximately 15 psig into recieving keg, presumedly with a small amount of viable yeast cells.

Might there be a small ingress of O2. Sure, I suppose, but just as likely there are random bacteria and other spoilage organisms hitching a ride or pre-existing in the fermenter or spunding keg as well. The issue isn't ultimate purity but the degree to which unwanted compounds can be reduced so as to not denigrate our finished product. Personally I worry more about PVCs leaching from plastic transfer lines than the minimal potential oxygen ingress from the brief time beer might be in a silicon transfer line.

Zero O2 is an unattainable goal. As long as oxygen is present in air there will be D.O. in water. There's also likely dueturium that results in "heavy water" as well but we don't obsess over eliminating the barely 1 in 6,000 random hydrogen isotopes and how they would react in brewing beer. If zero O2 were the only acceptable objective we never would have had pubs and rathskellers, because the beer had to get put into those kegs somehow and it wasn't as oxygen-free as the all-or-nothing absolutest methodologies we're talking about in LoDO.

I've seen improvement in the quality and stability of my beers since adopting LoDO techniques but I have to believe that the goal should be to achieve discernable results using logically obtainable practices.

I might try spiking my serving keg with a little krausening speise when I transfer from the unitank. The yeast oxygen scavenging of strike water also looks like a promising technique. Short of that I don't think I'll be abandoning the unitank to serving keg method without some pretty convincing evidence.

Brooo Brother


The logically obtainable, and by far easiest solution is to transfer beer from your fermenter to your final package with 1% extract remaining. You are doing work arounds that are outside of the normal boundries of the LOB process, and are unneeded, to justify your use of a untiank. I use a unitank method when I do 20bbl batches, and to negate the use of a brite and an additional transfer. In homebrewing there is zero need for a untiank, and due to square cube it is oxidixing your batch 100 fold more than the 20bbl batch on that still transfer. Not trying to be a dick, but it seems you are married to a piece of equipment over being married to beer betterment.

At the end of the day, you do you though. Just trying to help.

Also for reference, and so we are clear on how much 150ppb (the UPPER MOST acceptable limit of packaged beer) is. If you flip around a crown cap and were to fill that up with air, that would be too much, if it entered into your packaged beer. Also for reference if your purged keg used normal beverage grade co2, you would have more than that.
 
The logically obtainable, and by far easiest solution is to transfer beer from your fermenter to your final package with 1% extract remaining.

Theoretically, if OG were 1.065 and FG were 1.015 (assuming there are still minute amounts of yeast in the "finished" beer), then the amount of remaing extract would be 1% if 'FG' actually continued to fall to only 1.0145. Adding a small volume of speise would ensure yeast oxygen scavenging would continue if the original yeast had become totally dormant.

How is "final" is Final Gravity, and how is it determined? Three days of consecutive 'stable' measurements? In a recent conversation with the head brewmaster of a popular local commercial brewery, he told me of an experimental pilot batch they've had fermenting since October 2018 that is still fermenting. I know my equipment and methodologies aren't capable of detecting such a subtle yet continuing fermentation.

As to the cubic volume of 20 bbl unitank being 100 fold greater than a 7 gallon one, I grasp the math and concede the point. But that also begs the question: doesn't that imply that there'd be 100x the amount of oxygen in a 100 fold greater volume? If so, that beer must be awfully stale. More to the point, how does that beer get from the 20 bbl tank into kegs for distribution without introducing even more 02?

I know I'm probably missing something here, but assuming that the 20 bbl beer and my 7 gallon beer taste good and have reasonable shelf life, I can only surmise that the volume of O2, be it gaseous or aqueous, is either being reduced/scavenged 'enough' or is not a real world problem worthy of extreme measures.

Focusing on the things we DO agree on, I fall on the side of eliminating O2 as do you. Where we seem to differ is to the degree necessary and the steps required to reach that point. I've used the "spund in serving keg" method and agree it works well. I also have several unitank fermentations with transfer to serving keg under my belt, and the results have also been equally good if not better, not simply "more expensive." I pressure transfer using fermentation CO2, not bottled gas. I fully purge my recieving keg with NaMeta and push it out with fermentation CO2. The only place I can envision any O2 incursion, even a bottle cap full, is a trace amount from the bottled CO2 from the kegerator or the lines going from keg to tap. In the short time from tap to sip I'm not too concerned with oxidation.

Again, I'm not trying to be snarky or argumentative. Quite the contrary I salute your work and experimentation as well as your passionate advocacy for low oxygen brewing. I'm open to change and willing to be the old dog learning new tricks. Notwithstanding my investment in a unitank and an assortment of accessories, I'll admit a mistake if I can be convinced. But my experiences to date (hopefully not clouded by shiny new bling) haven't brought me to that point. Yet.

Cheers for the Holidays and New Year,

Brooo Brother
 
By "1% fermentable extract remaing," what is meant, is with 1% fermentable extract by weight remaining, aka, by definition, 1°P (or approximately sp. gr.1.004) above expected final as determined by FFT. This is sufficient to carbonate.
 
I guess I properly should have said 0.004 instead of 1.004. But you got the idea so I won't go back and edit.
 
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